I opened the library door, pencil and paper in hand.  Inside there was nothing to be heard but the clickity-clack of fingers on keyboards. I stepped inside and pulled the door slowly and smoothly behind me.  It quietly clicked shut.  As I walked through the space between the wall of the computer lab and the wall of the elementary book room I took in as much as I could see.  I noted that there was a water dispenser right as you walk in the door. I also noted that there were 18 computers in the computer lab, a perfect amount considering that there were only ten students in there at the time.  Their teacher sat at one computer, but didn’t type; he was looking through a stack of papers.  I walked on. Straight ahead there was a small desk with a computer. A lady walked up to me.

“Can I help you?” she asked politely.

“Yes,” I replied. “I am a member of the Middle States Association, Committee of Institution-Wide Accreditation, and I would like to speak to the librarian.”

“That’s me,” she said.

“Great! I have some questions to ask you. Do you have a minute?”

I asked her if she was a certified librarian. She said she was but her library aids weren’t certified although they had college degrees. I then asked her about the history of this library. She explained that it had been in this place for four years, but had been at ASOY since the school had been built. It used to be down where the art room is now, and up here was where the director lived. Then when the director died, the next director decided to move off campus, so this area was eventually made into a library.  When it finally moved up here, it started as just books for ages nursery through grade six, but gradually was for up to grade 12. 

“Our collection consists of 16,422 books, CDs, DVDs, and VHS,” she continued.

She pointed to a room behind me. “That is the easy-reading room, for grades   pre-K-5. Those shelves and that section there,” she pointed, “make up the reference section. This whole section,” she swept her hand over a large area behind her, “is the fiction section. Last but not least, this section to my left is the non-fiction section.”

I looked at the non-fiction section and noted that it had eight short bookcases, along with 16 cases that were about twice the height. In front of the fiction section, there was a study corner that had plenty of tables, including two small round ones,a large rectangular one with walls that split it into six sections. And a really shot one with six stools around it.